his fucking handwriting
by Sass-and-Caffeine
Summary: Prompt: I'm the grader for this class and you have literally the worst handwriting I was ever seen. I am tracking you down to warn you that if you turn in another pset like this I will have to give you a zero because I cannot understand anything you have written.


_A/N: This was for Pam (baseballbatofstydia on tumblr) for Stydia Secret Santa this year. Here's to hoping everyone enjoyed their Christmas this year! _

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**Prompt: I'm the grader for this class and you have literally the worst handwriting I was ever seen. I am tracking you down to warn you that if you turn in another pset like this I will have to give you a zero because I cannot understand anything you have written.**

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She couldn't even pronounce his name. Of that, Lydia was sure. Even being fluent in English, French, Latin, and Archaic Latin, she could not pronounce the mess of what she thought was only consonants.

Yet somehow, his atrocity of a name was the least of her problems. What really made Lydia hate the college kid she didn't even know was his handwriting.

Being a TA for Professor Monroe's class exposed Lydia to many things. Absolutely horrible grammar, science based more in magic than in fact, and – only once – a paper actually written in pig Latin (did college students even have lives?) had all been across Lydia's desk. However none of them were as infuriating and difficult to read as this one kid's.

Lydia had spent hours pouring over this kid's paper, cursing her old fashioned professor for not accepting any typed essays. Deciphering his chicken scratch was like trying to decode hieroglyphics without a key. Every time his name (that was his name right?) appeared her piles of papers she wanted to either cry, scream in frustration, or do both.

Perhaps when Lydia finally finished decoding his writing and the paper was crap she would be more amicable towards him. But instead of incomplete thoughts and fragmented sentences, Lydia found an amazing paper. His thoughts were years ahead of many in the class, on a few occasions he came to conclusions that even Lydia didn't think of. And that was truly made Lydia hate this guy… The fact that she wanted nothing more than to meet him and pick his brain.

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Stiles was more than aware of how bad his hand writing was. In grade 1 his teacher actually had to call his mom and dad in for a meeting to talk about his writing. His problem was just that his thoughts just travelled faster than his words. Even in college, he could not pace himself to allow his hand to catch up with his brain. Instead he rushed, leaving a scrawl of pencil marks on his paper.

Most of college this hadn't been a problem. Most of his classes only needed typed assignments and many labs were so short or written down by others that he didn't need to worry about it. That was until he took Monroe's class that he realized he was screwed.

Within the first 5 minutes of the first class Monroe said that he did not like the ease typing gave students. _In his day you had to spend a couple of hours writing out your research and it was in the days before whiteout so, if you made a mistake, you had to rewrite that page. _And from that moment began the hell that was Stiles' attempt at hand writing research papers.

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It was 3 am and Lydia was _tired_. She had been going since 7 am the previous day, had her last cup of coffee 4 hours ago, and had an 8 am math lecture in the morning. Yet still she was awake grading yet another research paper for Monroe. And that's when she saw it…

It was probably a mistake. She was overtired and sick of dealing with this guy's shitty handwriting and she was going to tell him. So the next day when Lydia laid out the papers for pickup, she specifically kept his in her bag.

Waiting only a few minutes she finally heard,

"Where the hell is my paper?"

Talking before she even looked him the face, Lydia started ranting, "Finally! I have wanted to talk to you for weeks about how fucking difficult it is to read your papers. Like I don't even get paid for this shit and I have to spend extra hours just trying to figure out what the hell you are saying –"

Lydia's voice faded when she caught a look at the face standing above her. The only thing she could focus was the whiskey eyes staring at her and the plump lips separated because his jaw was hanging open. And oh dear lord she should not be staring at his jaw line.

Lydia squared her jaw and continued, trying not to be too obvious about her distraction.

"Would it be impossible for you to make your writing fucking neater!?"

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"Would it be impossible for you to make your writing fucking neater!?"

Stiles felt like he was not functioning. All he wanted was to pick up his paper, go home, and finally crash from his massive caffeine high. But instead he found himself being yelled at by what he assumed was his TA and what he definitely knew was the hottest girl he had ever seen.

"Like seriously, I am a double major in Chemistry and Math and I can't understand it! And then topping on the cake is that underneath it all, you are actually fucking smart and that pisses me off!" She finished with her chest heaving.

If ask later, Stiles could honestly that he didn't take in a single word she was saying past the fact that it was about his handwriting. The rest of his attention was just taken up with the beauty in front of him. When her majors were processed he could feel his jar drop farther, she was that beautiful and smart?

Finally he regained enough brain function to actually react to the firey redhead in front of him.

"Next time I'll do better" he said as he walked away with a smirk.

He didn't.

His handwriting was the same, but on the next paper he wrote his phone number at the end.


End file.
